It's no secret that I'm a Christian. I have an entire TikTok account dedicated to studying the Bible. I don’t claim to know everything, but I love digging into scripture and unpacking it in ways that go deeper than a surface skim. And because of that, I’m used to friends and family coming to me with their faith questions.
So, I wasn’t shocked when my cousin called me the other week and said, “I have a Bible question for you.” What I wasn’t expecting was for her to ask if the Rapture was happening on September 23rd.
Immediately, I knew where this was coming from—TikTok was absolutely swamped with apocalyptic predictions. As someone who both creates Bible content and works in social media every day, I had seen it too.
I could hear the trepidation and uncertainty in her voice—she needed reassurance of the continuation of life as we know it. After walking her through why no one can actually predict the day or hour of the Rapture, I hung up and realized something: the real story here isn’t just about the Rapture rumor itself; it’s about the way social media keeps us all stuck in a cycle of panic, misinformation, and exhaustion.
The Rise of “RaptureTok”
If you were on TikTok in September, you probably stumbled across at least one video warning of Jesus’s imminent return. The spark came from a South African pastor who declared, with absolute confidence, that the Rapture would occur on September 23, 2025. He shared the claim on YouTube, saying he was “a billion percent sure” because God had revealed it to him in a dream. His video quickly gained traction on YouTube, and then TikTok did what TikTok does best—it caused an internet explosion.
Within days, there were hundreds of thousands of videos under the #Rapture hashtag. Some users leaned into comedy, some making tinfoil hats and joking about outfit choices for the big day or even posting “goodbye letters” in jest. But others took it seriously. Some quit their jobs. Some posted tearful warnings. Some prepared their families for what they believed was inevitable.
Whether you found it funny or terrifying, you shared the same reality—social media can take one person’s idea and flood the internet with it until it feels like the truth.
Why Fear Travels Faster Than Truth
Fear is viral by design.
Platforms like TikTok are built on attention, and nothing captures attention like panic. A video claiming “The Rapture is tomorrow” spreads much faster than a thoughtful explainer about scripture. Fear makes people stop scrolling. Fear makes them share. And the algorithm rewards that behavior by pushing content out to more and more people.
It’s a loop: fear → attention → amplification → more fear.
And while that’s happening, we’re left trying to process hundreds of “urgent” claims a day. Our brains were never built to handle that kind of constant input. It’s no wonder we’re stuck in what feels like an information prison—overstimulated, distracted, and too exhausted to figure out what’s actually true.
The Pace That Breaks Us
What makes it all so chaotic and consuming isn’t just the content—it’s the speed. Rumors used to take weeks or months to spread. Now, millions of people can see the same video in a matter of hours.
That firehose of information creates a false sense of urgency. Every headline is breaking. Every video feels like an emergency. Every prediction comes with dramatic music and flashing text telling you to “Wake up before it’s too late!”
Even if you don’t buy into it, your nervous system does. That constant state of “What if?” leaves us overstimulated, anxious, and fatigued.
The Information Overload Matrix
This is bigger than one conspiracy theory. We’re living in what feels like an information overload matrix. A world where urgency is manufactured, fear is monetized, and sheer volume drowns out truth.
The result? We confuse being informed with being overwhelmed.
We confuse scrolling endlessly with actually knowing what’s real.
And we live in a constant state of low-grade panic, never sure what to believe and too tired to sort it out.
The way out isn’t abandoning technology altogether but choosing to step back. That requires pausing before reacting, fact-checking before sharing, and recognizing when we’re being manipulated by fearmongering. We have to give ourselves permission to unplug, even if only for a little while, so our brains and hearts can reset.
As a society, we desperately need this discipline. If we don’t learn to pull ourselves out of the matrix, we risk living our entire lives in a state of distraction and dread.
And Yet…Here We Are
September 23rd came and went. No trumpets, no mass vanishings, no sky splitting open. TikTok has already moved on to its next obsession.
Hmmm, maybe the Rapture did occur and I just didn’t make the guest list. But more likely is that all the pandemonium was just another reminder that fear goes viral a whole lot faster than truth. Either way, if you’re reading this, it looks like you survived the “big day” too.
